Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind

And, getting up, he put on his clothes and left the room despite her startled protests and questions. He reappeared the next morning as she was breakfasting in her room, disheveled, quite drunk and in his worst sarcastic mood, and neither made excuses nor gave an account of his absence.

Scarlett asked no questions and was quite cool to him, as became an injured wife, and when she had finished the meal, she dressed under his bloodshot gaze and went shopping. He was gone when she returned and did not appear again until time for supper.

It was a silent meal and Scarlett’s temper was straining because it was her last supper in New Orleans and she wanted to do justice to the crawfish. And she could not enjoy it under his gaze. Nevertheless she ate a large one, and drank a quantity of champagne. Perhaps it was this combination that brought back her old nightmare that evening, for she awoke, cold with sweat, sobbing brokenly. She was back at Tara again and Tara was desolate. Mother was dead and with her all the strength and wisdom of the world. Nowhere in the world was there anyone to turn to, anyone to rely upon. And something terrifying was pursuing her and she was running, running till her heart was bursting, running in a thick swimming fog, crying out, blindly seeking that nameless, unknown haven of safety that was somewhere in the mist about her.

Rhett was leaning over her when she woke, and without a word he picked her up in his arms like a child and held her close, his hard muscles comforting, his wordless murmuring soothing, until her sobbing ceased.

“Oh, Rhett. I was so cold and so hungry and so tired and I couldn’t find it. I ran through the mist and I ran but I couldn’t find it.”

“Find what, honey?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did know.”

“Is it your old dream?”

“Oh, yes!”

He gently placed her on the bed, fumbled in the darkness and lit a candle. In the light his face with bloodshot eyes and harsh lines was as unreadable as stone. His shirt, opened to the waist, showed a brown chest covered with thick black hair. Scarlett, still shaking with fright, thought how strong and unyielding that chest was, and she whispered: “Hold me, Rhett.”

“Darling!” he said swiftly, and picking her up he sat down in a large chair, cradling her body against him.

“Oh, Rhett, it’s awful to be hungry.”

“It must be awful to dream of starvation after a seven-course dinner including that enormous crawfish.” He smiled but his eyes were kind.

“Oh, Rhett, I just run and run and hunt and I can’t ever find what it is I’m hunting for. It’s always hidden in the mist. I know if I could find it, I’d be safe forever and ever and never be cold or hungry again.”

“Is it a person or a thing you’re hunting?”

“I don’t know. I never thought about it. Rhett, do you think I’ll ever dream that I get there to safety?”

“No,” he said, smoothing her tumbled hair, “I don’t. Dreams aren’t like that. But I do think that if you get used to being safe and warm and well fed in your everyday life, you’ll stop dreaming that dream. And, Scarlett, I’m going to see that you are safe.”

“Rhett, you are so nice.”

“Thanks for the crumbs from your table, Mrs. Dives. Scarlett, I want you to say to yourself every morning when you wake up: ‘I can’t ever be hungry again and nothing can ever touch me so long as Rhett is here and the United States government holds out.”

“The United States government?” she questioned, sitting up, startled, tears still on her cheeks.

“The ex-Confederate money has now become an honest woman. I invested most of it in government bonds.”

“God’s nightgown!” cried Scarlett, sitting up in his lap, forgetful of her recent terror. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve loaned your money to the Yankees?”

“At a fair per cent.”

“I don’t care if it’s a hundred percent! You must sell them immediately. The idea of letting the Yankees have the use of your money!”

“And what must I do with it?” he questioned with a smile, noting that her eyes were no longer wide with fright.

“Why—why buy property at Five Points. I’ll bet you could buy all of Five Points with the money you have.”

“Thank you, but I wouldn’t have Five Points. Now that the Carpetbagger government has really gotten control of Georgia, there’s no telling what may happen. I wouldn’t put anything beyond the swarm of buzzards that’s swooping down on Georgia now from north, east, south and west. I’m playing along with them, you understand, as a good Scallawag should do, but I don’t trust them. And I’m not putting my money in real estate. I prefer bonds. You can hide them. You can’t hide real estate very easily.”

“Do you think—” she began, paling as she thought of the mills and store.

“I don’t know. But don’t look so frightened, Scarlett. Our charming new governor is a good friend of mine. It’s just that times are too uncertain now and I don’t want much of my money tied up in real estate.”

He shifted her to one knee and, leaning back, reached for a cigar and lit it. She sat with her bare feet dangling, watching the play of muscles on his brown chest, her terrors forgotten.

“And while we are on the subject of real estate, Scarlett,” he said, “I am going to build a house. You might have bullied Frank into living in Miss Pitty’s house, but not me. I don’t believe I could bear her vaporings three times a day and, moreover, I believe Uncle Peter would assassinate me before he would let me live under the sacred Hamilton roof. Miss Pitty can get Miss India Wilkes to stay with her and keep the bogyman away. When we get back to Atlanta we are going to stay in the bridal suite of the National Hotel until our house is finished. Before we left Atlanta I was dickering for that big lot on Peachtree, the one near the Leyden house. You know the one I mean?”

“Oh, Rhett, how lovely! I do so want a house of my own. A great big one!”

“Then at last we are agreed on something. What about a white stucco with wrought-iron work like these Creole houses here?”

“Oh, no, Rhett. Not anything old fashioned like these New Orleans houses. I know just what I want. It’s the newest thing because I saw a picture of it in—let me see—it was in that Harper’s Weekly I was looking at. It was modeled after a Swiss chalet.”

“A Swiss what?”

“A chalet.”

“Spell it.”

She complied.

“Oh,” he said and stroked his mustache.

“It was lovely. It had a high mansard roof with a picket fence on top and a tower made of fancy shingles at each end. And the towers had windows with red and blue glass in them. It was so stylish looking.”

“I suppose it had jigsaw work on the porch banisters?”

“Yes.”

“And a fringe of wooden scrollwork hanging from the roof of the porch?”

“Yes. You must have seen one like it.”

“I have—but not in Switzerland. The Swiss are a very intelligent race and keenly alive to architectural beauty. Do you really want a house like that?”

“Oh, yes!”

“I had hoped that association with me might improve your taste. Why not a Creole house or a Colonial with six white columns?”

“I tell you I don’t want anything tacky and old-fashioned looking. And inside let’s have red wall paper and red velvet portieres over all the folding doors and oh, lots of expensive walnut furniture and grand thick carpets and—oh, Rhett, everybody will be pea green when they see our house!”

“It is very necessary that everyone shall be envious? Well, if you like they shall be green. But, Scarlett, has it occurred to you that it’s hardly in good taste to furnish the house on so lavish a scale when everyone is so poor?”